29.4349, Confs: Anthro Ling, Historical Ling, Pragmatics, Typology/Germany

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-29-4349. Tue Nov 06 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.4349, Confs: Anthro Ling, Historical Ling, Pragmatics, Typology/Germany

Moderator: linguist at linguistlist.org (Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Helen Aristar-Dry, Robert Coté)
Homepage: https://linguistlist.org

Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Everett Green <everett at linguistlist.org>
================================================================


Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2018 17:16:10
From: Gilles Authier [gilles.authier at gmail.com]
Subject: Elevation as a Deictic Category. Typological and Diachronic Perspectives

 
Elevation as a Deictic Category. Typological and Diachronic Perspectives 

Date: 21-Aug-2019 - 24-Aug-2019 
Location: Leipzig, Germany 
Contact: Antoinette Schapper 
Contact Email: a_schapper at hotmail.com, gilles.authier at gmail.com 

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics; Historical Linguistics; Pragmatics; Typology 

Meeting Description: 

(Session of 52nd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea)

Elevation as a Deictic Category. Typological and Diachronic Perspectives.
Panel convenors: Antoinette Schapper and Gilles Authier
Keywords: elevation, spatial deixis, linguistic typology, diachrony, language
diversity
Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2018 

Elevation in a spatial deictic system is where a referent’s location or
trajectory is identified as being at a certain elevation relative to the
deictic centre. There has little comparative treatment or typologisation of
elevation components in deictic systems, with many terms used in the
typological and descriptive literature to describe them in spatial deictic
systems.

While a relatively rare feature world-wide, elevation is a common component of
spatial reference in several mountainous areas of the world. It is pervasive
in the languages of the Caucasus, of the Himalayas and of the Melanesian area.
It is less common but recurrent in other parts of the world, including the
Americas, northern Southeast Asia, and Ethiopia. 

This workshop will bring together descriptive and historical comparative
linguists working on languages and language families in both well-known
“elevational” areas, but also on elevation-coding languages in regions where
it is not the norm. The aim of the workshop is to explore the various ways in
which spatial deictic systems incorporate elevation as a category. The goal is
create a cross-linguistic picture of the diversity of elevation marking
systems in terms of their grammatical and semantic properties. The following
synchronic questions will be considered by contributors:

1. In what parts of the grammar is elevation marked?  (Demonstratives, case
markers, adpositions, adverbs, verbal affixes)
2. What elevation distinctions are coded cross-linguistically? (Binary
distinction of HIGH/LOW vs tripartite HIGH/LOW/LEVEL. Finer distinctions are
also found in some languages, with, for example, steepness of the slope
playing a role in distinctions.
3. In some languages elevation is tied to very specific aspects of geography
such as mountains (UPHILL/DOWNHILL), but in others it refers to any higher or
lower location. Are there systematic differences between elevation coding
systems that are tied to specific geographic features and those with global
reference?
4. What can be said about the relationship of elevation coding to other parts
of spatial deictic coding? For example, in some languages, elevation is only
coded in the distal domain.
5. That kinds of social and cultural patterns might underpin use of
elevational markers in ways that do not strictly conform to real-world
elevation, e.g., in the house, in relationship to important places such as
religious or economic centres? 
6. Are elevationally marked terms readily extended to non-spatial uses? To
time, to narrative/discourse, to social status, to epistemic categories?

The fact that elevation is frequent in certain parts of the world, but largely
absent in others suggests that areal as well as genealogical factors play a
role in explaining its distribution worldwide. As a result the workshop will
also address comparative and diachronic questions such as:

1. Where elevational deictic systems are innovated, what are the diachronic
sources of elevational terms?
2. Are elevational deictic systems stable in families and/or areas? In what
circumstances are elevational systems lost, maintained or innovated?
3. To what extent does Palmer et al’s (2017) Topographic Correspondence
Hypothesis (i.e., that languages spoken in similar topographic environments
tend to have similar systems of absolute spatial reference) hold in relation
to elevational deictic systems?
 






------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:

              The IU Foundation Crowd Funding site:
       https://iufoundation.fundly.com/the-linguist-list

               The LINGUIST List FundDrive Page:
            https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
 


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-29-4349	
----------------------------------------------------------